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The pandemic has challenged higher education institutions to move their courses online quickly. The varied status of each school prohibits a one-size-fits-all prescription for how to move forward. Extension Engine has created an Online Learning Response Team (OLRT) to work with schools with varying needs to define (and help execute) an efficient, holistic, adaptable approach to getting online. In this article, I describe our approach, highlight our work with two vastly different schools, and then provide a quick description of next steps to determine if this would work for you.

Institutions of higher education need to get their courses online. When this consists of 500, 1000, 5000, or more courses, it is clear that the institution’s efforts at supporting its faculty need to be targeted. In order to know where to direct its support efforts, school leadership needs to understand where it has its greatest exposure to risk in the transition from face-to-face to online. Extension Engine has recently helped a college go through the process of building a framework for assessing its own particular risk exposure and designing a survey to gather the information to help measure its risk exposure. We are currently helping them interpret that data and build a plan that responds to it.

Extension Engine helps higher education, nonprofits, and learning businesses create online learning experiences. Over the last seven years, we have focused on creating remarkable custom learning experiences. These are designed intentionally, over time, with an eye to differentiation and competing successfully in the client's chosen marketplace. As our salesman, my job is to find an organizational fit between a prospect and Extension Engine.

The Executive Education business is facing a crisis and a long-term change in its environment. What is needed is a commitment to re-inventing Executive Education in an online world. Leaders need to define a vision for online that incorporates the learning experience, platforms, strategy & marketing, and success metrics.

Finally, and most importantly, they must make four decisions that will determine if, when, and how much Executive Education revenue will ever rebound. Leadership’s answers will determine a school’s fate in executive education. 

As the COVID-19 global health crisis continues and many universities are now delivering the remainder of their semester’s lessons remotely, educators must grapple with the issue of providing students feedback using a combination of traditional and non-traditional methods.